This invention relates to the development of renewable energy technologies to curb fossil fuel consumption given the realization of fossil fuel depletion and concerns related to greenhouse gas emission. Solar energy represents a nearly endless supply of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation with a greater potential for providing dispatchable power among all the different renewable options. Solar thermal concentrators are among the technologies aimed at harnessing this energy source. High temperature solar plants have the potential to reach low cost electric power production, similar to conventional power plants, only if equipped with cost effective thermal energy storage systems. The common approaches for the storage of heat is through sensible heat in which the heat is simply transferred from a material, latent heat in which a phase change occurs, or thermochemical heat which involves a chemical reaction to release or store heat energy.
A significant amount of research has been applied toward storing sensible heat in molten salts. This technology is currently being employed in concentrated solar thermal power plants. While this technology is the most mature, sensible heat materials suffer from low energy densities and limited transport distances due to thermal losses. Latent heat materials can offer the advantage of higher energy densities and smaller temperature ranges for heat transfer, but the high cost and the corrosive nature of many high temperature phase change materials limit their practicality in concentrated solar thermal storage systems. Thermochemical heat storage systems can provide very high energy densities and economic systems with the right choice of materials. Thermochemical storage materials based on carbonation, oxidation, hydration, and hydrogenation reactions have received the most attention.